Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 21: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

TUNED OUT. what follows. Perhaps this is true; no ‘ longer being a child myself, and not having one within grabbing distance at the present moment, I cannot know. The negative pole of a strong magnet was brought near the positive poles of the floating magnets. It tended not only to draw them together, but—and this seems to be of an importance called prime—the floating magnets took up a definite group- ing in which this attracting force was in equilibrium with their mutual repulsion. So far as I am concerned, you can take it or leave it. It further seems that bearing in mind this picture of the corks symmetrically grouped about the central magnet, we can visualize the modern conception of an atom. The nucleus is represented by the bar magnet and is positively charged. The electrons can be compared to the floating needles which are negatively charged and which revolve in their orbits around the nucleus in a position determined when the attracting force of the nucleus is in equilib- rium with their mutual repulsion. So much for the prelude. It is easy to imagine the three young, earnest heads of Drusilla, of Ramier, and of Billy, bent absorbedly above Mother _ Bain’s container for her fatal stock of ‘ Cérise Supréme,” with their three sets of highly scientific round eyes fastened rapt- ly upon the five corks. The spell of the moment was broken by Ramier. ‘“‘ Suppose,” he said quietly, ‘‘ we were to stretch that equilibrium?” That was all. Such were his exact words. And yet what tremendous achievements resulted from them! “Well,” asked Billy, “suppose you did?” Ramier answered him through the cu- rious hush that the intent look in his eyes had evoked. ‘Even though it retained its solidity,” he said, “matter would apparently dis- solve.” The conception was staggering. ‘You mean you cculd make something vanish and seem invisible even though it 811 was still there all the time?” asked Billy nervously, “Yes,” said Ramier. “ With the proper apparatus I could make you dissolve into air and thus become invisible to human sight.” “Do!” said Drusilla huskily, with the cold light of the fanatical scientist in her eyes. ‘‘ You must try!” ‘IT shall,” said Ramier. ‘‘ From this moment on I pledge my time—my very life, if need be—to the attempt.” It was all very grand, very inspiring, and most lavishly applauded, except by Billy, who retained the impression that he had somehow or other let himself in for the rédle of experimentee. He planned, as soon as the first flush of enthusiasm should have subsided, to suggest that the experiment take place on, say, a pig. He intended strongly to advocate that a dissolved pig would be just as valuable to science as would be a dissolved Billy. = An immediate celebration was in order, and the three discoverers adjourned to the shop part of the Kitchen where they sealed their pact—there had been, as was nat- ural, an oath of secrecy—ahd fed their fomacts with a dish apiece of Mother Bain’s latest creation. This consisted large- ly of an ice dutifully subdued beneath anemic chestnuts in maple sirup, and whose name, Mother Bain proudly in- formed them, was “ morons under glass.” CHAPTER IV. THE INVENTION. AVING thus given birth to his hy- pothesis, Ramier at once concen- trated all his efforts upon the dis- covering of some invention that would effect an experiment to prove it. In common with the rest of the country, Bramwell University had gone wild over wireless. The theory of the propagation of wireless waves was an open book to Ramier, and in it he read a means to his end. His first endeavor was the invention and manufacture of an appliance that would trap the propagated waves as they leaped Oo COMmicboOolkks (©